Gov. Cuomo’s dose of reality

Today’s editorial: Governor Cuomo offers painful but necessary cuts — and some suggestions on making them less painful.

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For too long, New York has been an overachiever when it comes to spending. At last, Governor Cuomo has dared to lower the bar. The question now is whether the Legislature can resist its normal impulse to raise it yet again.

Whether you agree with each and every cut he proposes, Mr. Cuomo deserves credit for finally delivering a budget that tries to achieve something more than a precarious, illusory balance that just barely keeps the state afloat. The governor has gotten to the heart of what New York needs to do to solve its perennial deficits: Reverse the relentless, unsustainable and seemingly unstoppable trajectory in state spending that’s at the root of these budget gaps.

At the same time, Mr. Cuomo offers ways to minimize the fallout of admittedly dramatic reductions in state spending — by remembering, as we have urged those in government to do, the mission, whether it’s health care for the poor, educating children or some other public good. It is not to sustain and satisfy the bureaucracy, public and private, that has grown up around those missions.

Want to cut $1 billion in Medicaid spending? How about, Mr. Cuomo offers, cutting out the multiple intermediaries in, say, the home care system that collectively grab about 52 cents of every dollar before the money reaches the people who actually provide care?

Want to save $1.5 billion in school costs? How about, he suggests, a one-year wage freeze for administrators — who typically earn well into the six-figures — and teachers? How about consolidating some more districts? How about doing those things before resorting to the dire predictions of higher class sizes and elimination of all enrichment programs?

Want to cut state spending by 10 percent? How about, for starters, having state employee unions work with the governor on fair and affordable wages and benefits and other strategies that would save a very reasonable $450 million? Maybe Mr. Cuomo’s warning of the alternative — 9,800 layoffs — will provide the impetus that former Governor Paterson’s nearly 900 layoffs did not.

Mr. Cuomo’s budget will undoubtedly pit him against, well, pretty much anyone in the public or private sector whose paycheck is tied to the state budget. But it also sets him against a fickle citizenry that demands lower taxes and leaner government, yet opposes most cuts of any real significance. That schizophrenia was evident in a recent Quinnipiac University poll in which 96 percent of the respondents said the state’s financial problems were serious. But most of them opposed cuts in Medicaid or school aid — which together represent more than half of the budget.

Stripping away all the wonky details, Mr. Cuomo had a fairly simple message on Tuesday: Bad deficits don’t just happen to nice governments. Past governors and legislatures actually wrote much of this unsustainable growth into law, setting Medicaid and school aid increases alone at more than 13 percent this coming year. This, even as inflation has been virtually nil and New Yorkers’ personal income last year rose only about 4 percent.

Talk about living beyond all our means. When we really, really can’t afford it anymore, it sure seems like a good time to stop.

Jay Jochnowitz

3 Responses

It would be much simpler to cut all state taxes accept the personal income tax and set the rates to cover needed revenue. The effect of this change would to make it clear to all voters what government costs. This knowledge would lead to adjustments in government services to those that the voters want to pay for. It would also allow for dramatic cuts in tax and fiancé collection and enforcement activities.

I applaud Cuomo for being realistic in his budget. School districts knew this was coming. There are two choices districts have – one is to reduce salaries and benefits and keep things as close to status quo as possible; two – give teachers, administrators, et al. salary increases and do more with less. Those are the options – period.

First, educators, administrators etc all need to be held accountable. Their pay must be directly tied to their performance. The current state of affairs is simply unacceptable and I feel Cuomo is trying to place NYS back on the right path. The truth however, is much less reassuring. The Unions that impose the pay raises, number of teachers a school must have present, pensions/benefits etc are incredibly strong and as previous administrations have found, have a stranglehold on NYS politics writ large. I fear that Cuomo will face so much resistance once the Unions gear up to curtail his plans that he will placate them to protect his reelection bid. Also, in a similar vein, the Unions will have a field day with his proposed State Employee cuts. I really do not think he will be able to force his cuts upon them.

I hate to sound pessimistic, however, Cuomo is not the first politician to make such wide sweeping claims of spending cuts, only to lose fervor once the “Albany Machine” gets its tentacles around them. The truth: NYS is a near bankrupt State and has been getting worse for years. The citizens are overtaxed, underpaid and have been leaving in mass exodus to more middle-class friendly states. Like the federal government, in order to really change the states ethos of spend and tax, a total transformation will have to occur thereby fostering a new collective political agenda. The “Machine” must be reprogrammed and it must also be reduced to promote minimal Government. Until that happens, NYS can expect to see its middle-class citizenry continue its exodus.